Sam, a juvenile whale stranded for three weeks in Weetam Bay on B.C.'s central coast, had been plaintively calling for his mother right up until he was rescued Thursday.

And it appears his cries were heard: as soon as he popped out of the bay’s narrow entrance, the transient killer whale hooked with another pod and was on his way home, said Lance Barrett-Lennard, a killer-whale scientist at Vancouver Aquarium.

“Our little Sam was travelling close to them,” said Barrett-Lennard, who helped a Department of Fisheries and Oceans team to rescue the whale.

“That was good. The hope was he would join up with other killer whales and that wasn’t going to happen in the little bay he was hanging out in.”

Sam was first spotted in the isolated bay on Aristazabal Island on July 23 in a “happenstance visit” by John Ford and Graeme Ellis, a DFO cetacean research team.

Sam, who was born in 2009, is a member of a transient killer whale family that is seen relatively infrequently — their last sighting was two years ago. His identification was based on his uniquely-shaped white eye patches, shape of his dorsal fin and scratches and scars on his white saddle patch.

The DFO team only stayed overnight but asked Barrett-Lennard to check on Sam during his next research trip.

When he arrived a week later, Sam was still there, in good condition but still calling loudly and repeatedly for his mother. “None of us knew why he got in there,” Barrett-Lennard said. “We didn’t want to do anything at the time because we weren’t sure if his family was going to come back for him or not.

“There was enough water for him to get out at high tide. But after spending a few days watching him, we decided he was afraid to go through the opening.”

Barrett-Lennard tried over the next week to entice Sam to leave by playing transient whale calls with an underwater speaker, but the whale refused to budge.

And while Sam appeared to chase fish, he didn’t eat any. Transient killer whales usually prefer seals, sea lions, porpoises and other marine mammals.

Five days later, he and Ford slowly towed a floating line across the harbour towards the entrance while playing transient killer whale calls outside the harbour. The operation was carried out just before high tide, and Sam “shot” through the entrance.

“He wanted to get out, he just needed a little persuasion,” Barrett-Lennard said.

He plans to remain in the area for a few days to watch over Sam. He has also notified boaters and First Nations. “He’ll be a special whale now. We’ll always keep an eye out for him.”

This is the third whale rescue Barrett-Lennard has been involved in. The first, 11 years ago, involved Springer, a baby orca rescued off the coast of Washington state. The second was Luna, an orphaned killer whale that captivated the public before its death in 2006.

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Young killer whale stranded on B.C.’s central coast rescued, on his way home

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